


The Twelve Labours of Sherlock Holmes

by okapi



Series: July Watson's Woes Prompts [3]
Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Inspired by Mythology, M/M, Puns & Word Play, Reminiscing, Retirement!lock, Sherlock Holmes's Retirement, Story within a Story, Sussex, Untold Cases of Sherlock Holmes, Watson's Woes July Writing Prompts 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-06-05 07:17:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 8,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15165455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okapi/pseuds/okapi
Summary: Holmes (and Watson!) reflect on the monsters that have been slain over a long and varied career. [complete]ACD Holmes/Watson. Retirement!lock. Stories within Stories inspired by the mythological Twelve Labors of Hercules.





	1. The Nemean Lion

“Penny for your thoughts.”    
  
Holmes smiled. “I’ve spoken of the _Gloria Scott_ as well as the Musgrave business, Watson, but today I was reminded of another early case. In some ways a rather uninspired affair, a cousin in a spot of trouble, but a formidable adversary, Miss Ruby Leonidas.”   
  
“American opera singer?”   
  
“It’s forgotten that her career commenced here, Watson.  A majestic beauty with a golden mane, and when she opened her mouth,” he sighed, “she reigned, uncontested.”  Homes closed his eyes. For a moment, his face took on a rapt expression.   
  
“But she was a monster,” he declared when his eyes fluttered open. “Men sought her, naturally, but one-by-one, they met their doom. Penury, madness, death. Not unlike Charles Augustus Milverton in her method.”   
  
“Blackmail?”    
  
Holmes nodded.  “She feigned helplessness and when a knight came to her aid, nothing could sway her from making him her victim. Persuasion, bribery, even brute force, no weapon triumphed.”   
  
“But, Holmes, what did you do?”    
  
“She was an artist, so I struck at the only vulnerability:  her art. Like many artists, she was superstitious. I made myself a beggar woman and approached her one night as she was hurrying from stage door to carriage. I cursed her, loudly, saying her voice was mine, and that if she didn’t grant my wish, she’d never sing again.”    
  
“And?”   
  
“And the next day, I succeeded in substituting the wash with which she was known to gargle before every performance for my own special formula. It numbed her vocal apparatus enough that when she took to the stage she could no longer roar, only croak.”   
  
“Holmes!”   
  
“An understudy took the place of the star that night. When my golden-maned foe burst into the side street, snarling and gnashing her teeth, I was waiting, still in disguise. I said I’d rid her of her voice permanently, strangle her with my bare hands—from afar, by occult method, of course—if she didn’t return a certain letter and book passage to New York at once, never to return.  She glared at me for quite a while, then capitulated.  My cousin was saved, and the following night, Miss Ruby Leonidas gave her final performance on an English stage.” He tilted his head in contemplation, then added, “I believe It was the very first time I took justice into my own hands.”    
  
“Goodness, Holmes, but, ah! I think I know what made you think of it. That singular business on the beach with the _Cyanea capillata_. The lion’s mane.”   
  
“Indeed, that was one. And this,” he ran a hand along the old bearskin hearth rug, “though not a pelt skinned with a slain beast’s own claw, is two.”   
  
“Is there a three?”  I queried.   
  
His lips curled in a wicked grin, and he made a beckoning gesture.    
  
I fell, once more, into his naked embrace as he said,   
  
“I’d call this a Nemean lie-in.”   
  
I howled with laughter. “My pawky humour is finally rubbing off on you, Holmes.”    
  
“Among other things.”


	2. The Hydra.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Addiction is a many-headed monster. 
> 
> Warning for references to drug use and addiction. More anachronistic use of language for a pun. Reference to Isa and Kate Whitney from canon story "The Man with the Twisted Lip."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A second entry for the Watson's Woes July Writing Prompt #2, which is a picture prompt of a flea market table.

Suddenly, I felt eyes upon me.

“Did you loosen the lid of the crate and place this on top, Holmes?” I asked without looking up from the Chinese box.

“Yes, I thought you might wanted to see again after the morning’s encounter.”

“Fancy the daughter of Isa and Kate Whitney sitting next to us in the pew at church!”

“Even more remarkable since I’ve not darkened the door of the holy edifice in six months,” Holmes remarked dryly.

Ignoring his grumble, I continued, “I was so happy to hear that her mother and father are well. So very happy, Holmes. I can still remember the night I dug Isa out of that opium den. I can still remember Kate’s face when she gave me this. It was Isa’s.”

“Like my Moroccan case.”

I nodded. “She gave it to me for safe-keeping. He’d tried to rid himself of his craving so many, many times and failed, and she was at her wit’s end.”

“Cravings such as Isa’s and mine are many-headed Hydra, Watson, conquer it on one occasion, and two more occasions will follow, with the need, the lies to self and others, the desperation, even stronger. It is no wonder it claims so many victims; the very thought of fighting it engenders hopelessness. I could not have slain the monster without you. You were my Iolaus, helping me to cauterise the wounds as I struck head after head after head until finally I was left with the last, the immortal pillar of that writhing beast.”

“If I remember correctly, Hercules placed the monster’s immortal head under a rock. You buried the Moroccan case.”

“So I did. I buried it in a beach in Cornwall, and Isa Whitney buried his here, in a crate in our lumber room.”

“Do you still crave it?”

“Yes. Does that surprise you? To mix a metaphor, the siren’s song is faint, but I never answer the call.  Sometimes I forget, but the forgetting, thus far, has been temporary. It bides its time and returns when I’m weak.”

“And you fight it?”

“With all my strength and the golden sword of your love, Watson.”

I re-wrapped the Chinese box and set it back in the crate.

“I’m glad the Whitneys got their happy ending, too.”

We remained in a tableau of companionable silence until Holmes stepped towards me.

“I say,” he said before pressing grinning lips to the top of my head, “it’s a beautiful Sunday, and I’ve been such a very good boy, going to church and not falling asleep or interrupting the sermon to beg to differ. How about a bathe?”

“Sounds lovely. Inspired by all this talk of the Hydra?”

“Yes,” he said, his voice dropping to a cheeky rumble. “I fancy wrapping my many limbs ‘round you, beneath the surface of the water, of course.”

“Then we shall have to find a quite spot and I shall have to demonstrate the full force of my immortal, that is to say, legendary head.”


	3. The Ceryneian Hind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On a dark and stormy night, Watson recalls a case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the July Writing Prompts #7: And Now The Weather. Involve the climate in some way and for the Holmes Minor July prompt: Ruby.
> 
> The plot and Colonel and Mrs. Bantry are lifted from the short story "The Herb of Death" by Agatha Christie.

“A brandy for _your_ thoughts, Watson,” said Holmes as he laid the snifter beside me.

Rain pounded upon the roof like bronze hooves, and wind howled in the chimney like a slain stag. The only light was the glow of the fire and the rare flash of lightning, like the glint of a golden antler, inevitably followed by a stampede of thunder.

“I was thinking of a night like tonight,” I said, looking over my shoulder.

Holmes’s head was tilted in contemplation.

“The weekend at Sir Robert Hind’s hunting lodge?” he posed.

“Yes. Our first case, well, excepting the Moran business, after you…”

Even after all these years, I still had difficulty with ‘ _after you came back from the dead_.’

“…not a case, really,” said Holmes. “Just a puzzle.”

“Your brother knew. He suggested a country holiday and arranged for us to go.”

“True. He knew Colonel and Mrs. Bantry would be there and suspected that you and the Colonel would hit it off and that, over whiskey and cigars, Colonel Bantry might tell the story of the death of Sir Robert’s ward, Ruby Keene.”

“Foxglove mixed with the sage and served with dinner by a rather stupid cook. A whole party taken very ill, and the girl died. A simple tragedy, on the surface, but you knew, the very moment I repeated the story, that there was more to it.”

“I asked some questions of the Colonel, then Mrs. Bantry, then Sir Robert himself. I was exceedingly careful with the last, for Sir Robert Hind had friends in very high places. He was a kind of pet of one of the most powerful women in the land.”

“He seemed such a distinguished old gentleman, charming, even.”

“He’d fallen in love with the girl, as charming old men are want to do. He’d put off her engagement to a young man as long as he could, but after a year, she was threatening to elope. Sir Robert couldn’t have that. He’d sown the foxglove with the sage himself, picked it himself, and sent her to the kitchen with it. He’d heart trouble and had digitalis on hand. The food poisoning was just a blind. He’d given the girl a fatal dose of digitalis in some other way, in a drink of some kind, and no one questioned it.”

“No one but you, Holmes, and when Sir Robert realised the game was up, he fled, leaping and bounding like a man half his years!”

“And we followed, through the night…”

“…the blinding rain, the cutting wind…oh, Holmes, you looked magnificent, like a hero of old…then, finally, we found him, crumpled, face twisted in agony…”

“Yes,” sighed Holmes. “It was the weak heart which felled the Hind.”

I laughed in spited of myself, then whispered softly,

“I remember the inn…”

“…and the brandy, and speaking of hinds,” whispered Holmes, drawing the blanket from me, “I’ve a Herculean club for yours.”

“Slay me,” I groaned and arched my back in invitation.


	4. The Erymanthian Boar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“I heard them, Holmes. they called me Doctor Veronal! My stories put them to sleep! I’ve become an Erymanthian Bore!"_  
> 
> Major Palgrave is taken from Agatha Christie's _A Caribbean Mystery_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the Watson's Woes July Writing Prompts #10: **Going Grey.** A character attempts to hide signs of aging  
>  in some way, for some reason. Who, how, and why – that’s up to you!

Selfless concern warred with stubborn self-pity as I listened to the three-beat crunch of boots and stick on packed snow. I’d shoveled the path to the bench myself the previous morning, but still he shouldn’t have been venturing out. He could stumble, fall, even with support.

Ah, well.

I wasn’t his mother.

I harrumphed like the old man I was, curled myself around my tumbler of amber liquid, and said to myself, ‘To hell with him. To hell with all of them.’

The crunch ceased.

Had he fallen?

I ordered myself not to look; if he needed my help, he’d ask.

Nevertheless, I was relieved at the lack of distress in his tone.

“Drinking whiskey in the snow, my dear Watson?”

“What of it?”

“Nothing, except a request that I might join you.”

At that, I did look up.

A matching tumbler rested in his gloved hand; the other hand gripped his stick.

Suddenly wash with contrition, I rose and helped him settle on the bench.

“Thank you,” he said.

After a couple of silent sips, I said,

“You never liked whiskey.”

“True, but I find my palate growing coarser with time. Also, whiskey is more fortifying than wine, and confronting one’s inevitable decline is not for weak.”

“You?”

“Watson, I am fooling no one, including myself when I call this cane a ‘single-stick.’”

He tapped the ground with the instrument in question.

I studied his profile as I had so many, many times and fell in love all over again, but then I remembered my pain and turned my gaze to the snowy wood.

I exhaled a fog of disgruntled breath.

“Do you remember Major Palgrave, Holmes?”

He chuckled. “Yes, in its origin, the case of Major Palgrave was not unlike that of Mister Melas. He was a neighbour of my brother’s who’d gone missing.”

“A relic from the Indian army, or so we learned when we asked at his club…”

“The Chiron Club wasn’t it?”

“Yes, yes. The Major’s garrulousness was legendary. According to those who knew him, he was forever recounting the one about the man-eating tiger or the one about the baby carried away by ants or some such. They called him names, Major Sleeping Powder, the Erymanthian Bore, and said that he only stopped telling tales to sleep and drink. He was the kind that latches on to newcomers and drains their life force with story after story.”

“But a man of rigid habit, which was why Mycroft was alarmed when he did not return from his club at the usual hour.”

“Though I can’t imagine two people more dissimilar, your brother must have secretly harboured an affection for his neighbour, Holmes, fo he altered his own rigid routine and ventured out on a ghastly night—I remember it was bitter cold, with snow piled high and more falling—and asked about the Major at the Chiron Club.”

“And then came straight to Baker Street.”

I nodded and sipped. “Such a sleuthhound,” I said, my voice dripping with nostalgia and pride.

“And we, indeed, found him—alive.”

“In Regent’s Park, in a snowbank, telling a child’s abandoned snowman the one about the puma while he finished his port and slowly froze to death. Do you remember when we lured him back to the Diogenes club to tell Mycroft the good news?”

Holmes laughed. “I should have that moment preserved for posterity—painted on a vase! My frightened brother, cowering as best one of his size may behind a Greek pillar, begging us get rid of the loquacious beast, to take the Major out of the sanctuary of taciturnity which is, was, and ever will be the Diogenes club.”

“We took him to Baker Street.”

“You tended him.”

“It was a simple matter: three days’ treatment and his mind had returned.”

“And we all breathed a sigh of relief when he finally left.”

My bruised pride began to throb anew.

“Oh, Watson.”

“I heard them, Holmes. they called me Doctor Veronal! My stories put them to sleep! I’ve become an Erymanthian Bore just like Major Palgrave. Soon, you’ll find me drinking whiskey with snowmen.”

“Then I shall be quite jealous until the spring thaw.”

I turned to face him.

“You tell wonderful stories, Watson. They will live on, beyond you, I, and those two chits of girls at a winter village fete.”

I tossed the remaining whiskey in front of me and let the glass fall to muddy slush between my boots. Then I reached for Holmes, cupping his head in my gloved hand and drawing him to me, and kissed him.

It was a hard, demanding kiss, one that promised a stripping, a sucking, and a sodding in quick succession, perhaps, right there in the snow, so raw was my need.

When the kiss broke, he exhaled a ragged breath.

“Some things never change, Watson.”

I heard a wet dripping and, looking down, saw the contents of Holmes’s glass pouring out on the ground.

“Let’s not waste time or good whiskey,” I said huskily. “Inside?”

He hummed. “Hot bath?”

My body stirred, and I grunted. “Holmes, I want to…”

“As do I. Let’s go, Watson, the sooner we stop fretting about what we are no longer, the sooner we can enjoy what we still are.”

I got to my feet and turned to help Holmes when I heard a snuffling and snorting behind me.

“What’s that?”

A mound of snow shook, then seemed to wake up.

I spied two dark eyes and a long snout.

“Holmes, run!”

* * *

“It was _not_ a wild boar, Watson, merely a whiskey-roused pig!”

“But it _looked_ like one, Holmes,” I grumbled. “And you were fooled, too.”

“For a moment,” admitted Holmes.

“You know, you’re still quite good with your single stick.”

“And you’re quite fleet of foot. Bath?”

“Yes!”

“And I’ve a story for the storyteller. Do you know what eventually happened to Major Palgrave?”

I shook my head.

“He was murdered—for telling a story!”

“Oh, Holmes, do tell.”

 

 


	5. The Augean Stables.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Watson's public account of "The Musgrave Ritual" is missing something. Rating: Gen. Dialogue-only.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For [ancientreader](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ancientreader/works). Happy belated birthday!

“Holmes, do know anything about—?”

“Probably.”

“What’s got you so amused? What are you reading? My stories?”

“Your well-compensated, widely-read myths, you mean.”

“I’ll admit to taking license now and then in some of our tales, but how can you call ’The Musgrave Ritual’ a myth? If it is, it came from your own fabricating.”

“The context, Watson?”

“What of it?”

“There’s one minor part missing, is there not?”

“Well…”

“You write that you ‘ventured to suggest that I employ the next two hours in making the room more habitable.’”

“There were bundles of manuscripts in every corner! Three thousand paper cows chewing their paper cud for thirty paper years could not have produced such massive monuments of paper dung!”

“My papers were always your great crux, but did you, in truth, ‘venture to suggest,’ Watson?”

“I was, perhaps, a bit sterner. Oh, all right. I was livid, monstrously livid.”

“You presented me with an ultimatum: clean up the sitting room or you would, oh, yes, divert the Thames and wash out the filth yourself.”

“Not my best hour, Holmes.”

“You held a lit match over a tower of foolscap and threatened to set the lot on fire, stating as you had no Alpheus or Peneus to reroute that you would make a river of fire. You said, ‘You can tidy your papers, or you can sweep up your ash!’”

“I’m sorry, Holmes.”

“I called your bluff. You dropped the match.”

“We put out the fire together.”

“Yes, and I’m not so vain as to think that the packet of notes consumed by the blaze were of great significance. Does the world really need a third monograph on the variation in shapes of ears among the criminal classes? I think not.”

“Still, it was wrong of me, Holmes.”

“Yes. But you cleaned the Augean stables, my dear Watson, in true Herculean fashion. Your display shocked me out of my lethargy and helped me to see the error of that particular way.”

“You still keep your cigars in the coal scuttle.”

“And my tobacco at the end of a Persian slipper. And my unanswered correspondence jackknifed to the mantelpiece. But my papers, Watson?”

“Yes, though never scrupulously tidy, your papers have never again achieved that level of catastrophe. You’re quite correct, Holmes, I neglected to include that part of the incident in the public account, but after we cleaned the sitting room…”

“Yes, and it was then that I brought out the tin box and recounted the story of Musgrave affair.”

“Curios case. Uh, Holmes, speaking of curiosities, have you noticed…?”

“Alfie and Hank?”

“Who are Alfie and Hank?”

“The new day labourers.”

“Day labourers! No, I’m talking about the cats! An older orange-and-white and a younger brown tabby I saw prowling around the back.”

“Yes, they’ve been engaged to deal with the moles and the mice and all other threats upon your precious garden.”

“Oh, Holmes.”

“Yes?”

“I’d like to show you a bit of my natural Bohemianism of disposition.”


	6. The Stymphalian Birds.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Do you remember the case of the maniacal milliner, Watson?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the 2018 Watson Woe's July Writing Prompt #17: Hats, hats, hats!

Worn from bee-tending and gardening, respectively, Holmes and I sat in the shade, sipping tall glasses of my own infusion of strawberries, honey, and gin.

A single, white downy feather floated by on the breeze. We watched it pass with an easeful delight, then Holmes said,

“Do you remember the case of the maniacal milliner, Watson?”

“Yes, I regret the case could never be made public. There was a novel’s worth of material.”

“Indeed. Over the years, we took on a lot of cases requiring discretion and patience, but that one was among the most delicate. Stymphalian was a ladies’ hatmaker. His creations were sought after by all of high society, but he worked on very selective commission, and the price he exacted.” Holmes exhaled.

“Those hats, though,” I said. “They were stunning. The feathers! The fabric! The beading and ribbon! To see a woman wearing one of Stymphalian’s creations was to witness a mythical bird atop an imperial nest drifting through the air.”

“Watson,” said Holmes, admonishingly, then he added, “but I shouldn’t mock you because it was your appreciation for ladies’ hats that was the key to the whole affair.”

I blushed. Holmes continued.

“Stymphalian did not have clients, he had disciples. He cultivated their devotion carefully, but ruthlessly and tailored his methods to each lady’s weaknesses: medicinal tonics, fitting sessions that were unconventional, to say the least, violence as a last resort. He was an extraordinary assessor of human nature, but he used his skill for the worst of ends.”

“He was a mesmerist, too.”

“Oh, Watson,” sighed Holmes and rolled his eyes.

“He was!”

“Perhaps, but he was also very shrewd. I knew that trying to steal into his world disguised, much as I did with Charles Augustus Milverton, would never have worked. We couldn’t go small, so we went big.”

“We had very deep pockets. Lord Ruby, after his wife’s untimely accident, was ready to forfeit his kingdom to bring down Stymphalian.”

Holmes nodded. “And so, we opened a hat shop, right across the street from Stymphalian’s studio.”

I grinned. “And beat the bastard at his own game.”

“It was a house of cards, Watson, one gust of wind would’ve toppled it, but we pulled it off.”

“For a month.”

“For a month, Hudson’s Hats were the talk of the town, and the young actor we hired to play the hatmaker…”

“…loved every minute of it.”

“We flushed Stymphalian out of his swamp and enraged his flock.”

“And when he was fished out of the Thames, twelve of his own jeweled hat pins were sticking out of his chest.”

“That wasn’t what killed him, of course.”

“You refused to aide Scotland Yard.”

“We were, unfortunately, called to the Continent right after the body was discovered.”

“That last night, Holmes, before Hudson’s Hats vanished?”

He smirked. “We made imaginative use of the remaining inventory.”

“I kept the ostrich one, you know.”

“Indeed. After a bath, shall we flock together?”

“Let’s do feather the nest,” I cooed.


	7. The Cretan Bull.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Title: The Cretan Bull (Chapter Seven of The Twelve Labors of Sherlock Holmes)  
> Universe: ACD AU  
> Rating: Teen (for dark themes)  
> Length: 1000  
> Content Notes/Warnings: Retirement!lock, reminiscing about old cases, reference to imprisonment of a woman and child in a maze and dark unpleasantness, also reference to the fairies that ACD was so enamoured of.  
> Summary: _“Elsie Cottingley,” said Holmes ruefully. “I fell prey to the oldest and most insidious faults of logic when it came to that young lady: prejudice.”_  
>  Author's Note: for 2018 July Writing Prompts #26. A Logical Conclusion. Holmes is usually the logic-driven  
> character, but other characters can be logical too. Let someone other than Holmes be the logical one today. Bonus point if it’s Watson!

The arrival of the hard leather tube from London meant I had a new rival for my love’s affection. I’m certain that even the bees felt the cold wind of neglect when ‘the Maps’ appeared.  
  
Holmes commandeered the kitchen table and unfurled them one-by-one, then poured over each with a magnifying glass, only abandoning his study to run to the bookshelves and consult some reference or another. The first day I left him to his obsession, only foisting tea and toast and a sandwich at appropriate intervals.  
  
The second day, however, when I looked over his shoulder I saw a small, old, handwritten map atop the large, new, shiny, machine-printed ones.  
  
“Any trace of it?” I asked.  
  
He shook his head.  
  
“None. It never appeared on any map, save this one.” He touched the yellow sheaf. “And I don’t suppose it ever shall.”  
  
I answered the doubt and disbelief in his voice. “I saw it, too, Holmes.”  
  
“Yes, but according to all cartographic sources, the John Bull Forest has always been completely uninhabited.”  
  
“Well, you can hardly expect the Royal Society to declare ‘Here there be monster,’ Holmes.”  
  
“True, and we never found it again.”  
  
“We only looked for a week.”  
  
“Your health was more important than a gruesome fairytale, Watson.”  
  
Sensing a wave of reminiscence approaching, I ran to put the kettle on.  
  
“Elsie Cottingley,” said Holmes ruefully. “I fell prey to the oldest and most insidious faults of logic when it came to that young lady: prejudice.”  
  
“Nonsense. The surest predictor of future behaviour, Holmes, is past behaviour.”  
  
“But you believed her story.”  
  
“I believed the fairies, too, at first, at least.  
  
“You might be forgiven for that. At a young age, she and her cousin held a good portion of the country spellbound with those photographs, which, as it turned out, they had created using paper dolls and some skill in the development—and manipulation—of still images. Then, ten years later, Miss Cottingley seeks my advice because she’s stumbled upon a monster in a forest. Of course, I sent her off with a flea in her ear.”  
  
“No, you didn’t.”  
  
“I would have, but for you.”  
  
“I thought it was worth investigating. She was obviously very troubled about something, and she drew a convincing map.” I touched the corner of it carefully.  
  
“I told you I wouldn’t waste my valuable time and scoffed at you when you left with enough mountaineering gear to scale the Himalayas.”  
  
“I knew you would follow me, at a safe and scornful distance.”  
  
Holmes looked surprised.  
  
“My dear man,” I said. “This was after Baskerville and that business of Lady Francis Carfax. Past behaviour, future behaviour.”  
  
He snorted but paused in his recollecting for me to fetch a very high tea for our humble cottage.  
  
I took up the tale when we were settled once more.  
  
“I arrived at the tiny village where Elsie was temporarily residing with her aunt. I stayed a night, long enough to hear all the local gossip about the impenetrable John Bull forest and the occasional unexplained pillaging of village crops and orchards. I made use of the same horse that Elsie had used on the fateful day that a grave storm brought her face-to-face with a monster. I followed the map and what do you know? Something unspeakable did come upon me that first night after I’d made my camp.”  
  
“Oh, Watson, unspeakable? Really? I still didn’t believe her, you know. I just didn’t want any harm to come to you. Foolish doctors rushing in where fairy-fabricators fear to tread, etcetera.”  
  
Holmes got a far-off look in his eyes and I knew he was remembering when we’d come upon it.  
  
“What might have been a stately old home,” he said, his voice thick with nostalgia, “eaten alive by the forest.”  
  
“Crumbling, overgrown with vegetation, completely hidden.”  
  
“Almost completely hidden,” amended Holmes.  
  
“We found the path from the house to the…”  
  
“…maze.”  
  
“It was folly, of course,” I said. “Even the horse would not budge a step more. It smelt the danger.”  
  
“You told me not to. You told me to be logical. But I would have my puzzle solved, wouldn’t I? Twist after turn, turn after twist.”  
  
“Then we found him. Or rather he found us, and quite logically, tried his very best to kill us.”  
  
“It is not logic, but compassion that made you bring a tranquilising gun, Watson.”  
  
“There was the diary, or what was left of it, beside the skeleton, if we’d only managed to keep that, we would’ve been able to convince the world…oh, it’s no use thinking about it…by the time appropriate authorities arrived to collect him, the scraps of diary were burnt. Stupid, stupid girl."  
  
“Some people have difficulty believing in that kind of evil, Watson. We, unfortunately, know otherwise. With enough cruelty, a man can, in fact, sequester his family in an abandoned portion of a forest and build a maze to imprison his wife and ‘monstrous’ son. The latter could outlive his poor mother and manage to survive to middle age is, well, the stuff of fairy tales.”  
  
“Perhaps we should have left him there, in the forest.”  
  
Holmes nodded. “Perhaps. Perhaps he found his way back there when he escaped.”  
  
“And we never, ever found it again! Not the house, not the maze, none of it!” I exclaimed. “Oh, Holmes.” I put a hand to my head. “It was there! _It was there!_ ”  
  
“I know, Watson, I know,” Holmes said quietly. “But we couldn’t prove it. And logic, like fairies, requires unassailable evidence.”  
  
He reached a hand out and I clasped it.  
  
We looked into each other’s eyes and smiled.  
  
Then he released my hand with a matter-of-fact ‘Enough maps for today.’  
  
He set aside the paper and began to roll the glossy layers beneath it. When all was ensconced once more in the leather tube, he said,  
  
“Logically, I shall tend to my bees, then I'll tend to my Watson. Best for last.”


	8. The Mares of Diomedes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Title: The Mares of Diomedes (Chapter Eight of The Twelve Labours of Sherlock Holmes)  
> Universe: ACD  
> Rating: Gen  
> Length: 500  
> Content Notes: Retirement!lock. Pun-strength is very weak in this one.  
> Summary: Holmes is reminded of the dissolution of the Diogenes Club.  
> Author’s Notes: For 2018 July Writing Prompts #28. “There Is Danger For Him Who Taketh The Tiger Cub”.  
> Include a parent or parental figure in today’s work.

Early one summer Saturday morning, when my shell-collecting and Holmes’s observations of wind and tide took us somewhat farther along the shore than was our custom, we stumbled upon a man, in full cleric dress, smoking, at the mouth of a cave.

He answered our inquiring glances with a spirited, if not precisely ecclesiastical, groan.

“I’ve five daughters, and we are staying with my wife’s sister’s family for the week. Only place I can smoke in peace.” He looked at his watch. “Oh, I’ve got to get back. Excuse me, gentlemen.”

We watched him scurry up the hill.

“The Mares of Diogenes,” said Holmes.

“Don’t you mean Diomedes, Holmes?”

Holmes titled his head thoughtfully. “The monstrous man-eating harras of fillies I had in mind, Watson, was the one that brought about the dissolution of the Diogenes Club.”

“Ah, yes, the women who, upon being denied membership in your brother’s club, decided to bring about its downfall.”

“Never has a group of misanthropic, taciturn men turned so vocal. The ladies tried to infiltrate the ranks overtly, then by stealth and trickery, then they sought the club’s closure through protest outside its door. Of course, the noise of the banging of pots and pans drove many of the members mad.”

“They brought out the heavy artillery, too.”

“Indeed, the final blow came with the Club president, Mycroft had served quite a few terms and turned the leadership role over to a younger fellow, was discovered affianced to the leader of the opposition, as it were. The chattier, more open-minded fellows deserted to other men’s clubs. A few stalwarts went, literally, underground to a cellar floor with a separate entrance. Mycroft approached me to discuss possible solutions, but short of digging a moat, I saw none. At last, he admitted defeat. I always thought my brother would expire in the saddle, but it was then that he, too, chose retirement.”

“And the Club itself?”

“Well, they changed the name, and now it’s a fine mixed social club. One can walk its halls and chat about one’s cats, play bridge, find a sewing circle and hear the latest gossip, and the whole purpose of the campaign, visit the studio roof and sketch, watercolour, and oil the London skyline, bridges, and other vistas with aplomb. The light really is magnificent, but of course, the original members never looked past their newspapers, their glasses, and their cheroots.”

“Those women weren’t really monsters, Holmes, any more than that poor parson’s daughters are.”

“No, but the Club members would, of course, beg to differ, and I shouldn’t bring it up.”

“No, of course not. Shall we head back?”

“Yes, Mycroft’s train should arrive in about an hour.”

“You don’t think he’ll change his mind at the last minute as he did last time.”

“No, he said that wild horses couldn’t—”

“Oh, Holmes, he didn’t.”

“No,” said Holmes with a chuckle. “You know, punning is more difficult than you make it appear, Watson.”

“I shall give you some lessons…”


	9. The Girdle of Hippolyta.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Title: The Girdle of Hippolyta (Chapter Nine of The Twelve Labours of Sherlock Holmes)  
> Universe: ACD  
> Rating: Gen  
> Length: 500  
> Content Notes: Retirement!lock  
> Summary: “Oh, Holmes, I don’t think I’ve been that close to so many women’s undergarments since that affair of—”  
> “The girdle of Hippolyta?”  
> “If you mean Mrs. Hudson’s curious corset, then yes.”  
> Author's Note: 2018 July Writing Prompts #31. **Retirement.** Whether it’s Holmes and Watson retired  
>  together and enjoying the quiet life, Dawson reflecting on his adventures while living in the Mouse Soldiers Home, or some other version, set your work in the retirement era today.

The weight of Holmes’s body atop mine did not stifle my laughter, but his hand clamped tightly over my mouth effectively smothered any sound. The cautionary finger to his own lips was useless.  
  
“Mister Holmes! Doctor Watson!”  
  
We were as silent as the grave, well, as silent as a grave can be when both occupants are in the grips of mirthful paroxysms.  
  
Finally, there was a noise of disgust and defeat and retreating footsteps, but it was quite a long time before either of us spoke.  
  
“How wondrous your foresight, Watson, arranging this spot in your garden.”  
  
“I knew we might want to be out of doors but hidden from the world.”  
  
“It’s a cosy, fragrant spot.”  
  
Our eyes met and the laughter that we’d both been containing bubbled up and forth.  
  
“Oh, Holmes, I don’t think I’ve been that close to so many women’s undergarments since that affair of—”  
  
“The girdle of Hippolyta?”  
  
“If you mean Mrs. Hudson’s curious corset, then yes.”  
  
“I do. I think the parallel with the labour of Hercules is a fair one, considering that Mrs. Hudson was a queen among that warrior tribe known as English landladies, and I daresay the shock that we got earlier today was equal to the one when she entered the sitting room and announced that she had need of my services as a detective.”  
  
“Quite possibly, and when she said the matter concerned her new corset, I was rendered absolutely speechless.”  
  
“As, I confess, was I. But she was such an astute woman, Watson. I don’t know if anyone else would’ve given it a second thought, even if they had observed it, which is also unlikely.”  
  
“A message woven into the lace trim of the corset that she’d just purchased.”  
  
“Part of a message, which might have been interpreted as a serious threat to the life of a prominent figure.”  
  
“Luckily, Mrs. Turner had bought a similar garment from the same seller.”  
  
“Hers also contained a message, of an even more alarming nature.”  
  
“And then we were on the hunt!” I cried, then looked about, just in case.  
  
“You led the charge, Watson. Between your natural advantage and your medical bag, you saw the undergarments of a sizeable portion of the landladies of London.”  
  
“You put the pieces together.”  
  
“Yes, and with Lestrade, we stormed the East End and broke up a very nasty ring.”  
  
“And Mrs. Hudson saved the day without even putting on a dress!”  
  
“I don’t think we’ll be able to say the same today, Watson.”  
  
“Who do you think stole our clothes?”  
  
“I don’t know. They left our shoes.”  
  
“Were they spying on us?”  
  
“We were having an innocent bathe, Watson.”  
  
“But then some jackanapes—!”  
  
“And we had to steal a pair of bedsheets from good Mrs. Carruther’s drying laundry to travel home in any decency.”  
  
“And her chasing after us like we were criminals!”  
  
Holmes’s mouth crinkled. “We must’ve been a sight!”  
  
“I can’t face her, Holmes.”  
  
“No. Let’s wait a bit longer.”


	10. The Cattle of Geryon.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the way to a funeral, Holmes and Watson recall a case. Warning for minor character death and non-graphic reference to human trafficking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the 2018 Watson's Woes July Writing Prompts, Amnesty Prompt #2: All In This Together. Teamwork takes center stage today.

In our most somber of traveling costume, we sat in silence until Holmes said,

“I am thinking of the Geryon case.”

I nodded. “One of the greatest of your career.”

“Not just mine. Hopkins got his promotion, and Gregson…”

“Met Therese. I understand through Lestrade’s letters that their years together were happy ones.” I paused. “You know, Holmes, I believe with the Geryon case, you demonstrated that you’d learned from the case of Baron Maupertis and those which led to our holiday in Poldhu Bay.”

Holmes raised an eyebrow.

“You learned to divide the work and spare yourself the burden of doing it all yourself,” I explained.

“Everyone played a part, did they not?”

“Indeed,” I said. “Shinwell Johnson brought the affair to our attention after an intimate of his, one of Geryon’s ‘cattle’ who had attempted to escape her condition, was found dead.”

“Geryon was a monster, showing one face to the authorities he paid to look the other way while he conducted his monstrosities, another to those with whom he did business, and yet a third and most cruel face to his ‘livestock,’ whom he saw as beneath him.”

“It was said that Geryon had six hands, his trade extended to so many parts and six wings as he was able to fly above the law and human decency, but, in the end, you slay him.”

“ _We_ slay him. Miss Kitty Winter was invaluable.”

“She got you the lay of land, didn’t she? God, what a woman! She told us of Geryon’s most loyal associates, Eurytion, also called the Herdsman and his companion Orthrus, a vicious cur of a man.”

I grimaced as I remembered the mauling Orthrus had bestowed on more than one of Geryon’s chattel.

“It was no challenge to interest our friends at the Yard,” said Holmes. “And they worked well together: Lestrade, Gregson, Hopkins. But to bring down such a man, as I learned with Baron Maupertis, one cannot rely exclusively on police. You must also strike where they are most vulnerable: finances. Mycroft worked steadily and silently for weeks to get at Geryon’s assets and, more importantly, his debts.”

“And then Mrs. Hudson picked Geryon’s pocket when he came to tea!”

Holmes smiled a tight smile. “That was the last piece of the puzzle, but before we launched the direct attack, I called in a favour.”

“I never asked where you went that afternoon. One of the highest seats in the land, I supposed.”

“If I’d shot at the sun itself, I could not have gotten higher,” said Holmes. “I laid the whole plan out, and in admiration, I was allowed the means to bring Geryon’s terrors to an absolute end.”

“Orthrus, slain. Eurytion, slain. Geryon…”

“Arrested and because he could not face the barred fate that he so willingly served to others, put an end to himself.”

“Like a poppy, he shed his petals all at once.”

“Good riddance. No one shall miss him, but Gregson?”

I nodded. “He shall be missed.”


	11. The Golden Apples of Hesperides

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holmes is looking guilty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For 2018 Watson's Woes July Writing Prompt Amnesty #3: I Know My Holmes. Holmes is acting strangely guilty...  
> or something like it. Watson needs to solve the mystery.

“Yes?” drawled Holmes in a sleep-thick baritone that never failed to set my body astir.

“I didn’t mean to disturb you,” I whispered, apologetically.

“Then you should’ve endeavoured to make your stare less gravid,” he countered. He lay on his back with one arm bent, the hand hidden behind his head. His eyes were mere slits. Though his words and tone were gruff, he followed them with a charming snuffle and pulled me closer to him. “What is it?” he pressed as we pressed together.

“Are you going to tell me?” I asked.

It was the look. I’d caught it again, cast in my direction, when Holmes had first rolled onto his back; it was the same furtive, almost guilty look which had darted ‘cross his countenance several times the previous day, momentarily contorting his features like a sudden gust of wind whirls the late summer leaves. The first time, I remembered, was right before we’d sat down to a sumptuous luncheon, slices of my own beefy, juice-dripping tomatoes and slabs of cheese on thick buttery toast and a treacle doused in honey from Holmes’s beloved hives.

The look had reappeared at least thrice later in the day. I refrained from asking about it, but after an evening of wracking my brain for possible motives and sources and drawing a complete blank, I was left to a restless night and a morning’s determination to choose the path of last resort: direct inquiry.

Holmes didn’t feign ignorance, but he swallowed and snorted and shifted his weight in the bed, no doubt to buy himself time to compose a response. I’d kissed that thin, but stiff upper lip long enough to know that what came next would be part truth, part deflection.

“I was thinking of forbidden fruit,” he said.

“Oh? “Oh! Because I found a serpent in my garden of Eden yesterday morning? He was a tiny fellow, and I urge him on his way before Hank and Alfie got wind of him. He would serve as no end of sport for those two.”

“As defenders of your domain from vermin of the many and no-legged variety, our feline day labourers are second to none, but I was thinking metaphorically and specifically of apples and the Hesperides.”

“Ah, the summer of ’95.”

“Yes. Your reading public will know it as the period of our voluntary exile in a great university town, which is a true description, as far as it goes, but that affair of the three students is the lesser of the interesting occurrences.”

“I think my more astute readers may know that our decision to leave London was related to the Wilde trial.”

“But could they guess what that trial meant to us? How it fell at the most inopportune moment of our association? A year had passed since my return. My debt of one thousand apologies had been paid, and we had settled into a comfortable arrangement and were just, just, oh, just about to reach an understanding, or so I wished, hoped, prayed for to a god in whom I did not believe, when—”

He made a noise of frustration.

“I plead guilty to cowardice in never putting thoughts and sentiment into words,” I said softly and nuzzled at the nearest portion of him. “Everything was so carefully-guarded. I didn’t dare confess anything in plain language.”

“You are not alone in that verdict, Watson. I had foresight enough to get us out of London—”

“By setting fire to our rooms,” I interjected with a rueful tut-tut.

“—but then I abandoned you for the study of early English charters. I was afraid. I didn’t want to risk rejection. I didn’t want to face what I felt. And by the time I realised my folly, those Hesperides had got you in their nymph clutches!”

I chuckled. “As if I was interested in a quartet of sisters assigned to show me around town! And I won’t hear you disparage them, Holmes: they were delightful ladies, accomplished, talented...”

“And unattached! With a mother…!” He huffed.

“Who wanted what every mother wants: the best for her offspring. And, really, Holmes, I think I got my very first notion of having a garden of my own during that time. I mean, I must have viewed every flower bed or vegetable plot in a fifty-mile radius! But I need never attend another organ concert, I have had a lifetime’s worth.”

“I remember the afternoon that my desire finally won over my self-preservation, and I wanted to find you, then and there, but you were with one of the Hesperides. I had to first see the porter.”

“The one we called the Old Man of the Sea because he looked like a sea god.”

“Yes, he helped me find you. My heart was in my throat when I finally found you in an orchard of golden apples. I found an Atlas to lure your guide away, and then you were alone.”

I smiled. “’And the eyes of them both were opened.’”

“Yes, the nakedness came a bit later in our version.”

“As lovely as that memory is, Holmes, I’d still like the truth about whatever’s been bothering you.”

He hummed. “Dear me, I haven’t been sufficiently distracting…” His hands began to roam.

“Holmes!” I barked.

His caresses halted abruptly. Then he said, most resignedly, “Oh, well, it is about forbidden fruit.”

“Yes?”

“But it’s about the tomatoes.”

“The ones we had yesterday for luncheon?”

“Yes.”

“Well, what about them?”

“Well, they weren’t from your garden.”

“What?! Where in heavens were they from?”

“The good Mrs. Carruthers’ garden.”

“She gave you tomatoes!”

“Well…”

“Oh, Holmes. You _stole_ them! Dear God, Holmes, after the sheets! How will we ever face that woman?”

“It is a pity that relations are strained. It would quite useful to garner the good Mrs. Carruthers’ advice. She really does grow the finest specimens. I wonder what she puts in the soil.”

“Your salad days are over, Holmes,” I said with vinegar asperity.


	12. The Capture of Cerberus.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holmes ends a village feud by finding a dog.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who's taken this journey with me!
> 
> For the 2018 Watson's Woes July Writing Prompts Amnesty #6 I Didn’t Start It! Feature infighting,  
> squabbling, or an argument in today’s work.

I was pottering a bout in my garden on one of the dog days of summer and working up a sweat worthy of a pack of said canines when Holmes’s cry pierced the haze.

“Come, Watson! The hound is afoot! Get rope, a knife, and the last of the best sausages and come!”

The urgency in Holmes’s tone overwhelmed my confusion at his request. I abandoned my soil’s toil and went inside to gather the items demanded. The last on the list proved fewer sausages than I remembered putting by and I reminded myself to ask Holmes about the discrepancy at the appropriate moment, which wasn’t, as it turned out, any moment soon.

“Holmes, what’s all this about?” I asked as I overtook him at the gate.

He halted and turned and said, like a proud, quixotic knight errant,

“Our days of Herculean labours are not yet at an end, Watson! We are charged with capturing and retrieving Cerberus!”

“You’re barking!” I exclaimed.

He looked at me with a cheeky glint in his eyes. Then he puckered his lips. “Woof!” he said, as if he were blowing me a kiss.

I snorted.

“Another hellhound? I believe this is well-trodden territory for us, but if there’s any superstition like that of the Baskerville legend in these parts, this is the first I’ve heard of it.”

Holmes shook his head and beckoned.

We walked along the road side-by-side.

“I’ve just been heard through the village grapevine that good Mrs. Carruthers’ Cerberus is missing.”

“You mean the Peke?”

“Yes, though I believe it has some terrier in the lineage as well.”

“But I thought it was named,” I searched my memory, “Scruffy-Mac?”

He grimaced. “Wouldn’t you prefer Cerberus?”

I couldn’t argue with that.

“Holmes, this is rather incredible. One, that you are applying your genius to so mundane a matter as a lost dog and two, that you are applying your genius in the service of good Mrs. Carruthers. After the sheets, and the tomatoes, and that unfortunate incident in the lending library, we have what amounts to a village feud between our two households.”

“But every dog has its day, Watson, and this day is ours and the dog will be ours, too, ere nightfall! This service we perform will, once and for all, return good Mrs. Carruthers’ doghouse to its rightful occupant, that is to say, we shall no longer be in it! And peace shall reign in the valley—or the southern slope, if you prefer.”

“All right, my beloved sleuthhound, let’s go.”

* * *

Outside the cottage, winds howled, and rain lashed against the kitchen window pane.

“It’s cats and dogs out there, Watson!”

“Oh, dear God, Holmes,” I moaned as I lowered my shivering body onto a wooden chair. “ _These_ dogs are barking ferociously.”

“It has been quite a while since your feet have had the pleasure of such a lengthy adventure over such rugged terrain. Here.” He arrived carrying a basin of steaming water and set it down before me.

I slid my hands under my thigh, lifting each leg and then setting it down in the sluice. I gave a long sigh of relief and gratitude.

“You are the hero of the day!” I said, beaming. “The Carruthers family knows it, and by tomorrow I suspect the story of your Herculean labour will be all over the village.”

“My descent into the Underworld?” teased Holmes, handing me what I hoped was a hot toddy.

One sip confirmed my hope.

“Oh, God, yes,” I said. “Of all the foolishness I’ve perpetrated, lowering you into well-sized hole that led onto a sea cave to rescue a dog is among the most foolish. I’m so glad the Carruthers men found us and helped me with the rope. I would never have been able to raise you by myself.”

“That was a fortunate coincidence.”

I sipped my drink, then said, “It’s extraordinary that the dog made its way so far down without hurting itself, and you followed those footprints, not of a gigantic hound, of course, but a rather petite Pekingese-terrier mix, directly to the spot. I’m surprised it didn’t bite you out of fright when you finally reached it.”

“Well, I had the sausages.”

“You had _a_ sausage. I had the other.”

Holmes hummed. “More rum?”

“No, thank you.”

I stared at him, my mind churning.

“Holmes, when we first pulled you and Scruffy-Mac out of the cave, he smelled of sausage.”

“Naturally.”

“More than one sausage.”

“Your nose deceives you, Watson.”

I grunted. “Holmes, answer me plainly: did you hide that dog just to be able to find it and win favour with good Mrs. Carruthers?”

“What a monstrous idea!”

“’He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster,’ my dear Holmes. Did you use our best sausages to lure Scruffy-Mac away and keep him happy until you could return for him?”

“Dear Watson!”

“Don’t ‘Dear Watson!’ me! Did you arrange for the Carruthers men to find us as we were, in mid-rescue, so that you can have impartial witnesses to your heroics?”

Holmes harrumphed, then he waltzed behind my chair and leaned down.

“Don’t, unless you’re prepared to answer my question honestly,” I warned.

“That saying is a bit wrong.”

“The one about monsters?”

“No, Nietzsche is quite right, but the one about teaching old dogs new tricks. You can teach an old dog, an _old_ trick.”

“What are you talking about?!”

“You, learning to deduce. Now answer my question: when good Mrs. Carruthers took you aside after pouring out the celebratory glass of port, did she or did she not impart the secret of growing the ripest, juiciest, most august tomatoes in the land?”

My eyes widened. I turned my head to look him in the eye. “Holmes! You did it for that!”

He grinned. “These days I consider labours of love the only ones worth performing, my dear Watson.”

“You old dog!”

“Care to wake up with fleas?”

“Yes.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
